I Don't Want It Anymore
by AvoCola
Summary: B takes his roommate's pocketknife in an attempt to straighten out his thoughts. They end up more crooked than he could ever tell himself. Warnings inside.


Rated for gore and themes. If squeamish, it is not in your best interest to read this fic. WARNINGS UPDATE: I was told to label it as 'GORE, SELF-MUTILATION, FUCKING SCREWED UP PEOPLE.' That being said, thank you for your reviews and your continued support. This is my first published darkfic, so I hope you enjoy, as per usual. Reviewing would also be highly appreciated.

* * *

><p>"I don't want it anymore," B said, adjusting his voice. He wasn't sobbing correctly. Why did it feel so wrong? He had tightened his chest accordingly, prompted the nerve tissue connecting to his eyes... Of course, his eyes. Eyes that showed the death of the world, all in a constant red haze. Weren't they supposed to be what he blamed for everything, his curse. No normal human could deal with the pressure of seeing what he say, could they.<p>

The portion of room he could see from his room-mate's chair didn't falter around him. No colors blurred with the advent of liquid in his eyes, nor did they become inconsequential. B could still clearly make out the only bit of furniture in the room currently visible to him from the corner-facing seat, his room-mate's desk, a wooden chunk of a thing clotted with study materials. He was still aware how neatly he had closed the drawer, just-so in the tilted position its actual owner left it in. And it still held significance to him to see that tiny sliver of camouflage pattern, pattern that would have shown where the pocketknife he now held would be sheathed if it were not in B's hands.

"Why can't I hurt?" No, still not right. Pitched higher, with a certain cadence, and maybe it would pass for what he wanted. Did he want it? Did he care? For a second, B's grip on the knife tightened, and he nearly held a smile. It was gone soon enough, just like everything else. B kept its hollow replacement tacked onto his face, more out of curiosity than anything else.

"I should cut the smile right out of my face. I don't deserve it. I don't deserve anything." No, now that was completely wrong. B was trying to 'express himself', as the psychologist had assigned him, after all. What choice did he have but to be honest? "I should cut the smile right out of my face. I don't want it anymore," He clarified, feeling the true smile return for half an instant or so. It sure was good to be honest.

The blunt edge of his stolen pocketknife ghosted over his eyelid, seemingly without his own permission. B frowned, feeling its path altered by the slightest veins on his eyelids, the apathetic pumping of his blood. He guided his hand down, resisting the urge to waver. An image of his tongue, neatly and picturesquely slit in half by the knife popped into his head unbidden, and he rejoiced in it. The blade lingered on his lips, seeming to block any words about to come out.

B dragged the edge down, hissing slightly at it when his hand didn't seem to comply. It flicked out to nick his chin, but B hardly noticed beyond the ecstasy it brought with adrenaline. "Why can't I hurt..." He drawled slowly, rolling the words around in his mouth. They felt good this time. They tasted good. B rubbed his chin on the back of his unused hand, nearly purring at the contact. Wasn't blood so warm... It meant something, it made him feel something.

He examined the knife freely, the adrenaline giving him a control that he reveled in. This was true power. A knife leading one hand, and his own blood in the other. It was his own form of pushing limits. The psychologist had said that it was normal for teenagers to push limits, to fight against social stigmas. This was normal. This was just right. B moaned slightly, hearing the falsity in it as he did so. But no emotion he felt was honest, was it. He didn't need emotions to be. He didn't want them anymore.

A growl dragged out of him next, strangled slightly and without genuine thought. The sharp end, glimmering steel in the industrial lighting, had found itself pressing under his thumbnail, slipping into the sensitive cuticle. This time, he snarled for real, feeling that whatever slight power he had found had slipped away in that instant. He dragged the blade down, pressing his tongue on the roof of his mouth as he felt a red line form mimicking the one he had envisioned earlier.

The knife now rested in the highest joint of his thumb, tickling thin skin above the bone. B smirked at it, feeling it tremble beneath its touch. Didn't it like what it was doing? Couldn't it see the beautiful way layers of skin had been exposed, and now seemed to rot before B's own eyes? He envisioned the entire surface of his body covered in mold and gore, a strong ripple of adrenaline his reward. B rubbed the knife a little between fingers, telling it of what he had felt. It remained cold, unresponsive. B needed, no, was destined to change that.

"Look at me," He growled, the knife seeming to jerk away. "Look at me, I don't want you to look at me." The knife glimmered. B calmed dangerously at its defiance. "You treat me like a stranger, L," He told the cold metal, his cold eyes unchanging. "I give you everything, I assume you know that." The knife made no response. "A keeps you hidden from me. He knows that I see past the surface... That the grey in your eyes has color to me." B had difficulty with that confession, and was grateful to see that some blood had stuck to the knife, reddening it as he had said. A steel knife, the same shade as L's eyes... now endowed with the stain of B's own.

"But it doesn't matter, does it. You don't matter," B spat, and with that felt himself constrict his chest again. What faked emotion had told him it would be appropriate to cry at this time? His heart hardened again, his tone returning to normal. "Nothing matters. I don't need it. I don't want it." He finished, and jammed the knife through the flap of skin at the base of his thumb to splinter the bone. "But I'll take it anyway."

The end of his thumb hung to his hand by a ratted strip of flesh, and B felt the smirk return mechanically as he watched it swing. "I will. You know why, L?" The knife soaked in blood, dripping pathetically in sync with B's own hand. B watched the floor in amusement as he spun the chair around to face the part of the room he had turned his back on, seeing a small crimson circle form around him, a makeshift pentagon, a protection against evil he knew he was about to witness.

His own blood dropped in syntax with that of his room-mate's, his disconnected thumb swinging in grotesque time with the hanging corpse. A's numbers had run out approximately forty-four minutes ago, six seconds. "This is why," B said simply, tapping his dismembered finger to keep it swinging. He frowned, finally contacting Whammy's emergency system with a click of his belt.

He still had a few words to share with the 'detective', the knife that had cut him so badly. B faced the steel, "Because it doesn't matter. Because this," He drawled, holding up his mangled hand, "doesn't hurt." B ripped the thumb completely off, throwing it at the corpse. "I think we all know why. And I don't want it anymore."


End file.
